Timor-Leste national football team

Football was established in Timor-Leste during the Portuguese colonial era, when many of the locals and the Portuguese officials played amateur football. After Portugal ended its colonial rule, Indonesia invaded and occupied the island. East Timor eventually gained independence from Indonesia in 2000, which resulted in a long running battle against Jakarta-led forces.

The East Timor Football Association was accepted as an associate member of AFC at the 20th AFC Congress in 2002. Their international debut came in March 2003 when they participated in the qualifying campaign for the 2004 AFC Asian Cup in China. Given their history, it was no surprise that they crashed out with defeats against the likes of Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei. They entered the regional competition for the first time in 2004 as they played in the ASEAN Football Federation Championship (previously known as Tiger Cup) as an invited member. They finished in last place, showing that they had a long way to go before they could compete even on the regional stage.

They again had no success in the qualifying round of the 2007 AFF Championship, with four heavy losses, including a 7–0 trouncing by the Philippines. In the third qualifying round for the 2008 AFF Championship, they surprisingly drew against Cambodia; this feat was reported in international news.

In the ninth AFF Suzuki Cup, the country's football federation (FFTL) reportedly selected their foreign based players, who played in Brazil, Portugal, Australia and elsewhere, to fortify the team as they also did at the 2011 SEA Games.[6]

On 5 October 2012, Timor-Leste won their first international match in a 5–1 victory against Cambodia.[7] On 9 October 2012, the team won another match against Laos at AFF Suzuki Cup qualifier. Murilo de Almeida scored a penalty at 43 minutes of the first half of the match. Later Adelino Trindade extended the Timorese advantage with a header early in the second half and then Alan Leandro added the third goal on the 83rd minute.[8] After winning the second match against Laos, Emerson Alcântara stated "This is a win for the people of Timor Leste. They had to wait a long time for our team to win their first match in this competition but now we have two wins and this was an important victory for Timor Leste. "I think that about 70 percent of people in Timor Leste are poor so it is very important to get this result for them because they love football and the people can get confidence and take pride in this result. It is very important for us to motivate our people and to help to change their lives."[9]

Since 2012 several Brazilian-born footballers, who are not of East Timorese descent and had not necessarily played in the East Timorese League, were expressly naturalised to raise the level of "Sol Nascente".[10]

The country's recent history of naturalizing foreign players, mainly from Brazil such as Murilo de Almeida, Fellipe Bertoldo, and Diogo Santos Rangel has been criticized by many, including native East Timorese players and fans.[11][12]

In a match on 8 October 2015 against Palestine seven of the starting eleven for the Timorese line-up were naturalized Brazilians.[13] Following the match the Palestinian Football Association made a complaint to FIFA stating that the naturalized Timorese players were not eligible to represent Timor-Leste under FIFA rules.[14][15]

Following a concern from some Timorese who complained to the prime minister, the prosecutor general and the minister for justice regarding the naturalisation program, Timor Leste Football Federation (FFTL) decided to drop their oversea-born legion. It meant Timor Leste would be without seven naturalised Brazilian players for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup joint qualifiers match against United Arab Emirates on 12 November 2015.[16] In that match coach Fernando Alcântara played an all national line up including six who were under twenty, including Ervino Soares who was 16. Timor Leste ended up losing the match 8–0. Alcântara took responsibility for the defeat although he also added that he had been forced to play such an inexperienced line-up by the FFTL.[17]

The next match, Timor-Leste did even worse, suffering a record 0–10 home defeat to a strong Saudi Arabia side, who eventually qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Jesse Pinto, an Australian-Timorese footballer, told reporters that the FFTL gives Brazilian players Timorese passports so that they can be registered as "Asian" players and meet the quotas of teams. Pinto also added that the FFTL often takes advantage of players from poor backgrounds, but that it often did not meet its promises of allowing players to travel back to Brazil to meet their families.[18]

In December 2016, the FFTL was charged with using forged and falsified documents, fielding ineligible players and bringing the game into disrepute.[19]

A decision was made on 20 January 2017 that Timor-Leste is barred from participating in the qualification tournament for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup after being found to have fielded a total of twelve ineligible players in 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification matches and among other competitions.[20]

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

  Win   Draw   Loss   Fixture

2022

Indonesia  v  Timor-Leste

27 January 2022 Friendly	Indonesia	4–1	Timor-Leste	Gianyar, Indonesia
20:00 UTC+8	Kambuaya 65' Arhan 73' (pen.) Georgino 76' (o.g.) Filomeno 80' (o.g.)	Report	Freitas 35'	Stadium: Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium Referee: Sance Walita (Indonesia)

Timor-Leste  v  Indonesia

30 January 2022 Friendly	Timor-Leste	0–3	Indonesia	Gianyar, Indonesia
20:00 UTC+8		Report	Puhiri 5' Rumakiek 41' Kambuaya 72'	Stadium: Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium Referee: Aprisman Aranda (Indonesia)

Timor-Leste  v    Nepal

28 May 2022 (2022-05-28) Friendly	Timor-Leste	2–2	Nepal	Doha, Qatar
	Firth 44' Correia 45+1'		Gurung 51' Shrestha 72'	Stadium: Grand Hamad Stadium

Cambodia  v  Timor-Leste

2 June 2022 (2022-06-02) Friendly	Cambodia	2–1	Timor-Leste	Phnom Penh, Cambodia
19:00	Sokpheng 39' Chanchav 84'		Mouzinho 22'	Stadium: Morodok Techo National Stadium

Philippines  v  Timor-Leste

16 July 2022 (2022-07-16) Friendly	Philippines	4–1	Timor-Leste	Bali, Indonesia
	Ott 23' Menzi 45' Bedic 51', 90+2'	Report	Lucas 56'	Stadium: Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium Referee: Sance Lawita (Indonesia)

Brunei  v  Timor-Leste

5 November 2022 (2022-11-05) AFF Championship qualification	Brunei	6–2	Timor-Leste	Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
	Abdul Azizi 18', 33' Razimie 60', 90+3' Azwan S. 75' Wafi 89'		Mouzinho 45+1' Firth 65'	Stadium: Track & Field Sports Complex Attendance: 600 Referee: Warintorn Sassadee (Thailand)

Timor-Leste  v  Brunei

8 November 2022 (2022-11-08) AFF Championship qualification	Timor-Leste	1–0 (3–6 agg.)	Brunei	Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
	Mouzinho 45+2'			Stadium: Track & Field Sports Complex
Note: Brunei won 6–3 on aggregate

As of 2 September 2022

Position	Name
Technical director	Anwar Abzal Abdul Aziz
Manager	Khairuddin Abdullah
Assistant manager	Elliott Chung Bua Wong
Head coach	Gopalkrishnan Ramasamy
Assistant coach	Syazwan Ahmad
Goalkeeping coach	Hafizul Sharif
Physiotherapist	Christian Cheng Yu Kwok
Media Officer	Salamullah Rashid
Administrator	Ayushawaly Olodongarasam
Official	Mohd Hafizah Faisal
Kitman	Najib Ibrahim

Coaching history

As of 30 January 2022

Manager	Period	Internationals
		G	W	D	L	%
José Luís	2004–2006	10	0	0	10	000.0
João Paulo Pereira	2007	2	0	0	2	000.0
Pedro Correia de Almeida	2007–2008	5	0	1	4	000.0
Clodoaldo	2010	3	0	0	3	000.0
Antonio Carlos Vieira	2011–2012	6	1	1	4	016.7
Emerson Alcântara	2012–2014	4	2	0	2	050.0
Manuel da Costa Soares	2015	1	1	0	0	100.0
Fábio Magrão	2015–2016	3	0	1	2	000.0
Fernando Alcântara	2015–2016	6	0	1	5	000.0
Simón Elissetche[24]	2017–2018	3	1	0	2	033.3
Norio Tsukitate	2018–2019	9	1	1	7	011.1
Fábio Magrão	2021–2022	9	0	1	8	000.0
Gopalkrishnan Ramasamy	2022–present	2	1	0	1	050.0

As of 8 November 2022

Players in bold are still active with Timor-Leste.

As of 8 November 2022[27]

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	WPCT
Brunei	10	3	0	7	15	25	−10	30.00
Cambodia	9	1	2	6	17	23	−6	11.11
Chinese Taipei	4	0	0	4	3	10	−7	0.00
Hong Kong	2	0	0	2	3	11	−8	0.00
Indonesia	6	0	0	6	2	21	−19	0.00
Laos	7	1	0	6	9	18	−9	14.29
Malaysia	7	0	1	6	3	25	−22	0.00
Mongolia	2	2	0	0	5	1	+4	100.00
Myanmar	4	0	1	3	2	7	−5	0.00
Nepal	4	0	2	2	3	9	−6	0.00
Palestine	2	0	1	1	1	8	−7	0.00
Philippines	8	1	0	7	5	29	−24	12.50
Saudi Arabia	2	0	0	2	0	17	−17	0.00
Singapore	2	0	0	2	1	8	−7	0.00
Sri Lanka	1	0	0	1	2	3	−1	0.00
Thailand	3	0	0	3	0	17	−17	0.00
United Arab Emirates	2	0	0	2	0	9	−9	0.00
Total	75	8	7	60	71	241	−170	10.67

• Profile at FIFA.com
• Profile at the-AFC.com
• Profile at AFF Suzuki Cup Site
• Profile at AFF Site
• Timor-Leste at National-Football-Teams.com
• 2012 AFF Suzuki Cup squad
• Timor-Leste national football team at Soccerway